12 HARD THINGS YOU NEED TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR ATTITUDE

Marc Chernoff

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the mind is your ultimate battleground. It’s the space where the greatest and fiercest conflict resides. It’s where half of the things you thought were going to happen, never actually happened. It’s where your inner resistance buries you with negativity. And, when you allow these thoughts to dwell in your mind, they gradually succeed in robbing you of peace, joy, and ultimately your life. You think yourself right into nervous breakdowns and bouts of depression, time and again.

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WHY DID BIG WEDDING CEREMONIES BECOME THE WAY TO GO?

Segun Akande

In recent years, a typical Nigerian wedding has gone from a relatively intimate experience to something between a carnival and a church revival.

Either by nature or the influence of time and other cultures, it’s fair to say that Nigeria is a marriage-crazed society. Here, everything that is related to the union of man and woman is more significant than you’d expect.

Without a doubt, the most accentuated of all these is the wedding, the act of tying two together as one.

Many years ago I listened to a preacher share about how his wife would leave the television on at night and sleep off and they lived in a country where you pay based on how long you keep the TV on. Leaving the TV on therefore increases the television bill.

That attitude of his wife would annoy him and he was always angry at his wife for doing that yet it continued. It was obvious it was going to become a strain in the marriage.

Then one day the Holy Spirit asked him, “Is your marriage not worth fifty dollars extra at the end of the month? If this attitude of your wife will mean an extra bill of fifty dollars is it too much to pay for peace to be in your marriage?”

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DOES YOUR LOVER ACTUALLY LOVE YOU?

Kyle Benson

Sometimes we become attracted to people and date individuals who treat us poorly. I once dated a woman who would shame me for acting needy. She would tell me I was crazy, and it made me feel humiliated and worthless. It sucked. But as I pointed out in Attachment Theory Explains Why Your Relationships Suck, our attachment needs cause us to be insecure when they are not met. They cause us to behave in crazy ways, because we’re trying to find security.

Unfortunately, some individuals don’t value our needs. Sometimes they neglect us. If you’re an anxious person, this can cause you to frantically dive into a toxic relationship, unconsciously drowning yourself in a love that can make you hate yourself later on as you invest more and more in the relationships, only to get a little back in return

Getting our needs met in a relationship is complicated. Due to conflicting emotional blueprints, using vulnerable communication doesn’t always immediately solve a problem. But there comes a time in every relationship where you will decide if the woman is actually going to help you get your needs met and make you happy, or if you’re going to have to move on.

TWO WAYS TO GET YOUR DETACHED SPOUSE MORE EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED

Darren Wilk

Many of the calls we receive in our office for relationship help come from people who are tired of doing all the work in their marriage, and a decade ago we would have been able to generalize that the person making that call was usually the female in the relationship. But regardless of which gender makes the call, they have asked their partners over and over again to get into gear and take more responsibility for the relationship. The response some of them get is “Why? There is really not much wrong here, and anyways, we can fix it on our own without help”. By the way, many people who come into counseling after their partner has left them say “I don’t know what happened. I thought everything was okay”. Does this sound familiar?

So what do we do with the gender differences today? Some still apply. Many men typically don’t seek outside help for their relationships for the same reason that many men won’t ask for directions. We hate not being able to figure something out on our own. Men, by nature, are trained and socialized to be independent and self-sufficient. We would rather learn from doing than from discussing. This does not make it right, and the new millennial’s are certainly changing this trend as the social culture evolves.

Many studies on gender segregation in children have discovered significant differences in how girls and boys play. Think about this the next time you’re watching children at a playground. The boys are rarely sitting around talking. They’re doing something active.

MANAGING VS. RESOLVING CONFLICT IN RELATIONSHIPS: THE BLUEPRINTS FOR SUCCESS

Dr. Marni Feuerman

In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr. John Gottman’s research proves that 69% of problems in a relationship are unsolvable. These may be things like personality traits your partner has that rub you the wrong way, or long-standing issues around spending and saving money. Their research findings emphasize the idea that couples must learn to manage conflict rather than avoid or attempt to eliminate it.

Trying to solve unsolvable problems is counterproductive, and no couple will ever completely eliminate them. However, discussing them is constructive and provides a positive opportunity for understanding and growth. Let’s look at three “conflict blueprints” to help you and your partner constructively manage conflict around unsolvable problems.

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LOVE AND CONTEMPT

Steven Stosny

It’s so easy to go from one to the other.

Contempt in love relationships occurs at the end of a long chain of resentment, caused by accumulated perceptions of unfairness. Contempt makes partners seem more like opponents than loved ones. They see their problems resulting not from the way they interact or regulate emotions. Rather, the problem is characterological, they’re immoral, selfish, unstable, or stupid—there’s something wrong with them. Contempt sends people to the Internet to diagnose their partners with various personality disorders. The desire to diagnose a partner typically indicates a level of contempt that, unabated, spells doom for the relationship. It’s hard to be compassionate, kind, and loving to someone you hold in contempt, and it’s equally hard to be compassionate, kind, and loving to someone who holds you in contempt. A relationship in contempt is like a patient on life support. Without heroic intervention, it will die.

How to Know that You Have Contempt for Your Partner

Contempt is present when you use (or at least think) contemptuous attributions such as, lazy, selfish, inconsiderate, crazy, narcissistic, borderline, and so on.